Yesterday was our first full day in Vilamoura which really does feel like our second home. While Portugal is a predominantly Catholic country, it doesn’t seem to stop them from opening shops on Easter Friday (fortunately). We had no food in the house so I managed to find a store open at 8am to buy enough for our breakfast. The family were all up relatively early (given we have a bunch of teenagers in the house) and so at about 10am we headed out for the main restocking shopping trip to Continente (Hypermarket type store) in the Algarve Shopping Mall.

Every time we come to Portugal and browse the supermarkets we learn something new or see something new. Helen was surprised by the lack of Hot Cross Buns (they clearly don’t do those in Portugal at all) and Easter Eggs. The latter wasn’t actually true – she just hadn’t seen the whole section of the shop dedicated to the 3000 different Easter eggs yet.  When it comes to meats, chicken is the national food but a close second is pork it seems.  Buying a whole piglet seems to be what is done here in the supermarkets over Easter (we all thought of Janet when we saw this and so we have included the photo especially for her).

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching SA throw it away against the West Indies (why do I keep thinking SA will have a chance of winning a major cricket tournament!) – at least the boys and I did that while the ladies caught up on the sleep they have missing. We also did some more shopping at the supermarket of the things we managed to forget to buy the first time. Even thought the Rand has slipped considerably against the Euro since last year, the food is still not significantly different in price. Chicken is still about R40-R50 per kg which is the same or cheaper than what we pay in SA (for example).

It really was quite a nice day in Vilamoura yesterday as you can see from the photo. It isn’t very warm (highest temperature was 20 degrees C yesterday) but it is still and clear. Today seems to be very similar. Helen is already out on her normal Saturday am run (making up for missing out on the Two Oceans Half today).